Why School Should Start Later

Why School Should Start Later

At Northern Cambria, the bell for the beginning of homeroom is around 7:25 AM and the late bell is 7:35 AM. Knowing this along with the number of students and teachers who live out of town, a lot of us have to wake up around 6 AM if not earlier. According to the CDC, teens that are the ages of 13-18 need 8-10 hours of sleep each night.

I sent out a survey to students to learn their after school schedules. I asked the following questions: how many activities they are involved in, when they get home from school/activities, what tasks they might have time for after activities, if they have time to relax after said tasks, when they fall asleep at night, when they wake up to get ready for school, and finally what time they leave their house to get to school. Through all of these responses, I have learned that most students have at least one activity after school. The majority of students get home around 3 PM, but many others get home later. Many students get home later than 6 PM, some even as late as 10 PM. Almost every student who responded said they do homework and chores when they get home. After these tasks, almost every student feels like they have at least some time to relax, but few still feel like they do not.

When I asked when students fall asleep at night, the majority said from 10 PM to around 3 AM. Along with this, quite a few students have said that they need to wake up for school at 5 AM to 6:30 AM. I also asked what time they leave their house to get to school and those answers varied from 6:30 AM to about 7:15 AM. When we take into consideration when these students are falling asleep as well as waking up in the morning, most are not getting even a full 8 hours let alone 10. Even from the earliest time, 10 PM, and the latest time of waking up, 6:30 AM, that is just barely 8 hours of sleep. Most from that majority said they fall asleep during the later hours rather than the earliest that was said. Again, most students are not getting enough sleep and are having to wake up just to get ready for school at least an hour before they leave their house.

I believe that the start of school should be pushed back by exactly one hour; the homeroom bell should ring at 8:25 AM, and the late bell should ring at 8:35 AM. That way, students would need to wake up around 7 AM to get ready, leave around 8 AM, and be here on time. If these same hours that students fall asleep remained, most students would be getting 8 hours of sleep. Of course, the school day may need to run a little later in the day, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. If we stayed at school for about a half hour more and changed the class schedules a little, everything would be a lot better for each student as well as lifting a weight off of many teachers’ shoulders, (especially teachers who have kids!). Students would be able to focus more in their morning classes without being so tired, and they would still be able to make it to their activities if we kept it to only a half hour longer after school.

Works Cited

“How Much Sleep Do I Need? | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 September 2022, https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/about_sleep/how_much_sleep.html. Accessed 19 October 2022.

“Sleep in Middle and High School Students | Healthy Schools | CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 10 September 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/features/students-sleep.htm. Accessed 19 October 2022.

(and my own survey)